Re: Net packages should be compiled under the 1.2 kernel include files

[Rob Leslie <rob@mars.org>]

Miquel wrote:
>> I think in general, until the kernel 1.4 (or 2.0) is released that we
>> should require applications (at least network aware apps) to be compiled
>> with the 1.2.13 include files.

And Bruce replied:
> I don't think that's going to work, as various networking interfaces are
> changed for 1.3 . We finally gave up trying to edit 1.2 to present the same
> network interface as 1.3 . I think we are beyond the point where we can
> support a 1.2 kernel any longer, even though 1.3 is not yet released. If
> Linus doesn't beat us to a release, it's going to be very close and 1.3 will
> probably be a good deal more stable by then.

Perhaps the right solution for things like bind then is to notate either a
dependency or a conflict on the kernel version. How should this be done? And
what version of 1.3 is considered "safe" as far as network interface changes
are concerned? (i.e. What's the earliest kernel that supports the networking
interface present in the most recent kernel? Maybe it's not possible to answer
this.)

I'm content to leave the 1.2-compatible bind in the stable tree and go ahead
with 1.2-incompatible versions in the unstable tree if that's what Bruce
thinks I should do.

xntp is another package that comes to mind perhaps needing similar attention.

-- 
Robert Leslie
rob@mars.org